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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I'm in the process of putting together a new desk top computer piece by piece. Partly to defray overall cost of the project, and partly becuase I'm curious (and have been for some time), I'm going to put Linux on it.

The computer I'm putting together will be based on an AMD Athlon 64 CPU. As such, I downloaded the images for Fedord Core 3 for the 64. I still need to learn how to turn those images into CDs, but I'm sure that I can figure that out by myself.

Now might be a good time to point out that I really know nothing about Linux. I used Unix very briefly in college, and it just reminded me that I'd forgotten most of my MS-DOS knowledge. That was 6 or 7 years ago, so you can imagine what good shape I'm in now.

So, some questions: should I take any hardware parts into consideration? Will I be able to network with my Windows XP laptop, or will I have to create a dual-boot system for this? Is Fedora Core 3 a good distro for me to use, considering my newbiedom? Where can I find a good (preferably free) ebook/thread/article/etc. to answer some questions I haven't even asked?

I never used Fedora or setup a network with Windows, but at least for the hardware, check the Harware Compatibility List. If possible, get pieces that are listed there (with a good rating). This can avoid problems like lack of support and/or drivers.

1)Get a list together of everyting you are planning on buying (may I suguest www.newegg.com)

2) Go to Fedora's web page and look at their Hardware Compability List (HCL) and look to see if every thing that you are planning to buy is listed.

3)I would personaly stay away from ATI video cards, they tend to have some problems with Linux compability. (I also don't like much pain, so hehe)

4) WRIGHT EVERYTING DOWN! When problems arise notes are a god send! When taking the notes go as far as wrighting down every option that you chose, all your hard ware, any error messages...

5)With your windows computer use a cd burnning program like Nero, close out of the wizard, then go to 'File" . 'Burn Image'. And bada boom bada bing, you now have a bootable CD to load linux with. I would also say find a Md5sum chercker program for windows, coffee coasters sucks.

The first (and only, so far) component to my system that I've actually ordered and paid for is the ATI All in Wonder 9800 Pro (128 MB). It should arrive tomorrow or the day after. Unfortunately, after checking the HCL here and looking at a few other sites, it seems as if the TV tuner part of the card will pretty much be useless under Linux. This is very bad news, since without the TV tuner I'm really not getting my money's worth out of the card at all.

Will this be the end to my (suddenly brief) foray into the world of Linux? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Being a newbie myself in this big world of linux i thought i would say something here. I've tried a few distros now (live CD's and SuSE) and i've settled on FC3. Only moans are about the lack of MP3/WMA and NTFS support, although both are easily resolved if you have a look in the Fedora forums here. One point tho, if you do go for the duel boot with Windows, using a FAT based file system would allow much easier cross over to linux when your TV card is finally supported and at least a FAT partition makes life easier.

The first (and only, so far) component to my system that I've actually ordered and paid for is the ATI All in Wonder 9800 Pro (128 MB). It should arrive tomorrow or the day after. Unfortunately, after checking the HCL here and looking at a few other sites, it seems as if the TV tuner part of the card will pretty much be useless under Linux. This is very bad news, since without the TV tuner I'm really not getting my money's worth out of the card at all.

Will this be the end to my (suddenly brief) foray into the world of Linux? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Or try a different distro, Mandrake maybe? I recommend this not only because I run it, but because it has unbelievable hardware support. It also has a wizard in the control center specifically for TV cards. I highly doubt a brand as widely used as ATI would give you any trouble.

I was totally new to computers when i started building mine. I love it to death but I paid more for it than I should have.

Never by computer Pieces one at a time.

I personaly would read up on hardware, and find the best hardware "bang for the buck" and I slowly started buying parts. I built this computer over a summer (3 months), this was bad because by the time I had the last part to install all the parts i saved up for were 50% cheaper and I hadn't even used them before.

I.E. I bought one of the new 80 gig hard drive, they were around $200+ then. It dropped down to 160$ and I that was the first part I bought because i didn't tihnk it would come down anymore... boy was i wrong. By the time I had everything isntalled I could have bought the 80 gig harddrive for 89.99.

My suggestion, do what they users said above, research, research, research. make sure you have all the computer parts that are 100% supported. Then buy all the parts at the same time.

Just my two cents :P I love my computer but man I was stupid, lol
Bryon

I am no expert but, about two years ago I assembled my computer from parts. It was a good learning experience. When you assemble your computer it would be best to not assemble it in a carpeted floor because of the tendancy to create static electricity when walking on a carpet. I have a wood floor in one room and a cement floor in another room. I also wore an inexpenive anti-static strap that I grounded to the case.

I do not know if you will be using a dial-up connection, DSL or broadband or what for your Internet connection but, from what I have heard, internal Winmodems typically tend to be a problem for Linux. Pretty much any external serial modem will work under Linux without any special driver (but external USB modems do not always work). There are some internal modems that will work with Linux but I just use an external serial modem. Besides, I like the way that the flashing LEDs tell what the modem is doing at any moment

I recently added a new DVD-RW which seems to be working good under Linux. It is an NEC ND-3500A., it is almost totally silent and seems to be working good so far. I chose it because of what someone said about it here:

I had never burned any DVDs before and I barely even knew how to burn CDs. I ended up using X-CD-Roast to burn my DVDs and had to follow the instructions on the web page below about how to get a DVD-key before it would actually allow me to start buring DVDs.

So far I have sucessfully burned some CDs and DVDs that were DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, CD+R and CD-R. Those are the only formats that I have tried so far. I sometimes did get a warning about a possible underburn but, it only said possible underburn not that it had definately happened for sure. When I verified the tracks each time it always said that all the tracks were OK, so I assume that the DVDs that I burned are good. I was also able to mount them and read what was on them. The warnings only happened when burning DVDs and never when burning CD-Rs. I am new to burning DVDs and CDs and at this point barely know what I am doing.

Some processor / fan combinations are somewhat noisy so if you do not like noise you might be careful there. There are probably about 50 different heatsink/fan combinations for processors on the marker. I am not really sure which one to suggest. You also might want to get a case badge that says something like Linux powered or Linux inside instead of one that says Windows inside. I am not up-to-date on what the latest technology is such as with things like serial ATA hard drives, PCI-Express or 64-bit computing. Some scanners work under Linux and others don't, I do not have any experience yet with scanners under Linux but here is a List of what works, what doesn't and what sort of works:

My old Happaugue Win-PCI TV-tunner that I transplanted from my old computer works (I am not sure of exacly which model it is). My 250-MB externel USB Zip drive works great with Linux, as do my Lexar 128-MB JumpDrive and my SanDisk USB Digital Audio Player. Here are a couple of reviews that mention two of the above devices:

One other comment that I have is that on both of my computers the installation programs for some Linux distros worked perfectly and the installation programs for other distros failed. On this computer the installation program for Fedora Core 3 complained about something to to do with my hard disks and refused to try to install anything. Xandros and Turbo linux also give up at about that point. However, I have not had those problems when installing Slackware, Libranet, Vector Linux, SuSE and Red Hat 9 on this computer. I tried them all out just for the heck of it. If the installation program for one distro fails you might want to try a different one. I am not sure what it is about my two computers that some distros do not like. Neither my newer computer or my older computer share any parts in common. I am not suggesting which distros are more likely to have problems when being installed, just that for me some installed easily and other distros just complained about one or both of my hard disks and gave up. This computer has been running Linux for two years very well, by the way. For me Linux has been very stable and trouble free. I also like not needing to worry about viruses, worms, browser hijackers and spyware like so many Windows users that I know. I mainly just checked to see if my Linux firewall was doing its job properly and have installed an occaional minor security update. Well actually, I have both Windows and Linux on this computer but Linux is what I use 90% of the time.